24 Hours (19 page)

“I want you to go back outside, Abby, into the woods. Make sure Mr. Huey isn’t around, then sneak out of the shed, get down in some bushes, and stay down.”

“But it’s nighttime.”

“I know, but tonight the dark is your friend. Remember Pajama Sam? No need to hide when it’s dark outside?”

“That’s on the computer. That’s not real.”

“I know, baby, but the woods are the safe place for you now. Do you understand?”

“I guess so.”

“Do you think your sugar ’s okay?”

“I guess.”

“Don’t you worry, sweetie. Mama’s going to come get you.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. Now, I want you to look outside, and then run into the woods. Take the phone with you, and stay on the line. Don’t hang up, okay?
Don’t hang up.
”

“Okay.”

Karen covered the phone with her hand and pointed the gun at Hickey’s head. “Get up, you bastard.”

He looked up, his eyes bright with anger. Maybe with surprise, too, she thought.

“I SAID, ‘GET UP’!”

Hickey flattened his hands on the floor and raised himself slowly, then leaned against the frame of the bathroom door for support.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

She gave him a cold smile. “I’m changing the plan.”

NINE

Dr. James McDill and his wife sat across from Special Agent Bill Chalmers, a bland-faced, sandy-haired man in his early forties. Agent Chalmers’s tie was still neatly tied despite the fact that it was 11:30 P.M. McDill had called the Jackson Field Office of the FBI a few minutes after Margaret’s mini-breakdown, and that call had resulted in this meeting.

He had planned to come to the Federal Building alone, but Margaret had insisted on accompanying him. Chalmers met them in the empty lobby, escorted them through the unmanned security post and up to the FBI floor. They arrived to find most of the office complex empty and dark: a government-issue cube farm lit by glowing computer screens. Chalmers led them back to the office of the SAC, or Special Agent-in-Charge. A nameplate on the desk read FRANK ZWICK.

The Jackson FBI office had a distinguished or notorious history, depending on what part of the country you were from. It had been established by J. Edgar Hoover himself during the terrible civil rights summer of 1967.

“I’m not quite clear about some of the things you said on the phone,” Chalmers said from behind his boss’s desk. “Do you mind if I ask some questions?”

“Fire away,” said McDill.

“We’re talking about a kidnapping-for-ransom, correct? And wire fraud, it sounds like.”

“Yes, to the first question. To the second, I imagine so.”

“And this happened one year ago today?”

“Give or take a few days. It happened during the same annual medical convention that’s going on right now in Biloxi.”

Chalmers pursed his lips and gazed through the window, toward the old Standard Life Building, illuminated now by cold fluorescent light. After a few moments’ thought, he looked the heart surgeon directly in the eye.

“I’ve got to ask this, Doctor. Why did you folks wait a whole year to report this kidnapping?”

McDill had rehearsed his answer during the drive over. “They threatened to come back and kill our son. We’d paid the ransom. It was a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, which, frankly, isn’t much money to me. Especially weighed against the life of my son.”

“But didn’t you tell me the kidnappers told you they’d done the same thing before?”

“Yes.”

“So you must have feared from the first that they would do it again, to another child. Another family.”

McDill looked at the floor. “That’s true. The hard truth is, I’m more selfish than I’d like to think. If I had it to do again—”

“I was raped,” Margaret said quietly.

McDill froze with his mouth open, but Agent Chalmers settled back into his boss’s chair, as though the situation was at last becoming clear.

“I see,” he said. “Could you tell me a little more about that?”

McDill laid a hand on his wife’s forearm. “Margaret, you don’t have to do this.”

She waved off his hand, then gripped the arms of the chair. It was clear that she meant to tell the truth, no matter what it cost her. As she spoke, she did not quite look at Chalmers, but into some indeterminate space beyond him.

“I wouldn’t let James report what happened. I was alone with the man who was running the kidnapping, and my son was being held at another location. Peter was at the mercy of these people. My husband was also. The man with me . . . he was in telephone contact with his partners. He could have told them to hurt or kill either Peter or James. He made very sure that I understood that, that I believed he was capable of it. Then he used that fact to extort sex from me.”

McDill tried to comfort her, but she shrunk away and kept talking. “Very painful, dirty sex,” she said. “I was terrified that would be made public. I know now that I was wrong to keep it quiet, but—” She wiped one eye but kept going, like a marathon runner forcing herself to reach the finish line. “Combined with the threat to come back and kill Peter, I simply couldn’t deal with the idea. I couldn’t take that risk. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, either. I haven’t thought about anything else since it happened. I can’t even make love with my husband. I—I’m going to pieces, I think.”

McDill took her hand and squeezed it hard. This time she didn’t pull away.

Agent Chalmers picked up his pen and tapped it on the table. He suddenly seemed much more convinced by their story.

“The truth is,” said McDill, “it was just easier for us to try to forget it. To pretend it never happened. But it did.”

“And now you think it’s happening again.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me why.”

McDill took a deep breath and marshaled his thoughts. “I have no objective evidence. I admit that right up front. But the woman holding me at the hotel said they’d done the same thing before, more than once. I believed her. She also said no one had ever reported them. And knowing what I know now about the leader’s tactics, I believe that, too. I mean,
we
didn’t report it. The man who conceived of this damned scheme—Joe, or whatever his real name is—is clearly a psychopath. He kidnaps children to get money, and to commit rape as some sort of bonus. And so far he’s gotten way with it. I guess what I’m saying is, what reason does he have to stop?”

Chalmers put down his pen and laid his hands flat on the desk. McDill had the sense that the agent was deciding whether to engage the full resources of the FBI in the middle of the night, or to take a more conservative approach.

“Mrs. McDill, you were with this man for a considerable period of time. Did you have a feeling about whether the name he used was his real name?”

Margaret had begun weeping softly. McDill and Chalmers waited.

“I think Joe was his real name,” she said. “I think it was some perverse point of pride with him. Like he could do all this to us without any fear that we would report him. The fact that he used his real name demonstrated his superiority. That’s what I think, anyway.”

“Did he say anything about where he was from? What state, for example?”

“No.”

“Did he say the other kidnappings had taken place in Mississippi?”

“No. But I assumed they had.”

“Did you have any feeling about what part of the country he might be from?”

“The South,” Margaret said. “Definitely the South. I won’t say Mississippi for sure, because the accent was . . . too hard. Like he was from the South but had been away for a long time. Or maybe the reverse. A man who was from someplace else but had spent a lot of time in the South. Does that make any sense?”

“Yes,” Chalmers replied. “What about you, Doctor? Did the woman you were with say where she was from? Something about family, anything like that?”

“Nothing useful. She seemed frightened by the whole experience. But she was obviously committed enough to go through with it. I had the feeling she was dominated by this Joe character. I also thought—a couple of times, anyway—that the two of them might be married. She never said it in so many words, but the way she spoke about him gave me that impression.”

“How old was she?”

“Early to mid-twenties.”

“Really?”

“She was quite attractive, to be honest.” McDill gave his wife an uncomfortable look. “I mean, you wouldn’t have expected someone who looked like her to be involved in something like that. She looked like a Junior League wife, or even a model. Swimsuit model, anyway.”

Agent Chalmers turned to Mrs. McDill. “What about Joe? The leader. How old was he?”

“Fifty. Somewhere around there.”

“Could you give a good description of him?”

“Yes.”

“Recognize him from a photo?”

“Yes.”

“Any distinguishing marks?”

Margaret covered her face. “He had a tattoo on his arm. An eagle. Very crudely done.”

“Do you remember which arm?”

“Left. Yes, the left.”

“And the girl?” Chalmers asked McDill.

“I’d know her anywhere. If you want to put me on a plane and fly me down to the coast, I’ll go through that whole hotel looking for her.”

“I’m not sure that’s the most efficient way to go about it. If she is in the hotel, she’s probably in a room by now. We can’t go through every room in the place looking for someone we don’t even know is there.”

“Not even for a kidnapping?”

“The Beau Rivage has eighteen hundred rooms. No judge would give us a warrant for that. Not without more evidence.”

“What about a bomb threat?” McDill asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the FBI. You could say you had a bomb threat on the casino. They’d have to evacuate the hotel. I could stand outside, watching as you bring the people through the front door. You could videotape them.”

Chalmers looked at McDill with a combination of surprise and respect. “You’re talking about a felony, Doctor. And violating people’s civil rights.”

McDill shrugged. “Desperate times, desperate measures.”

“I wish it worked that way sometimes. We’ll start by going through the Jackson police department mug books. And the NCIC computer.” He ran his tongue over his lips and glanced away from the McDills. Somehow this action telegraphed his next question.

“No,” the surgeon said.

“No, what?”

“No, we’re not going to involve our son at this point. The third member of this group was a semiretarded giant who claimed to be the leader’s cousin. He called himself Huey. He kept Peter in a cabin in the woods, somewhere within two hours of Jackson. He called the leader Joey. That makes me think Joe was the leader’s real name. From what my son described, the retarded man might have had trouble remembering an alias. He spent all night whittling. But that’s all Peter could tell you. We don’t want him involved.”

“Not even to look at mug books?”

“Not at this point.”

“But, Doctor—”

“If you try to involve our son, I’m going to call my attorney and break off contact with you. I’ve already spoken to him tonight, and he urged me not to speak to you without him present. I disregarded that advice. However, if you try to involve Peter, I will call him. He’s awake at home, waiting for just such a call.”

Chalmers started to respond, then apparently decided that McDill was not the sort to be intimidated by threats.

“Well, then. The next step is to go over to the JPD and go through some of their mug books. There’ll be a homicide shift working, and I know some of the guys over there. I can access NCIC from there, as well. Are you two ready to look at a hell of a stack of pictures?”

“We’re prepared to do anything you require, short of involving Peter. The sooner the better. I really think there are people in danger as we speak.”

Chalmers nodded. “From all you’ve told me, I’d say we have a few hours before they try to wire and collect the ransom. I’m going to wake up my boss and outline the situation. We can alert the coastal banks to flag all wire transfers of any size coming in tomorrow morning. We can have agents from the New Orleans office ready to respond the moment a suspicious wire comes in. We can also have a tactical squad here in Jackson, ready to hit whatever bank is the source of the wire, and arrest the leader while the wife is inside trying to send it. There are lots of ways to come at this thing—”

“Just a minute,” McDill interrupted. “You’re forgetting something.”

“What? The hostage?”

“Yes. If you arrest any of these people, the schedule of thirty-minute telephone calls they keep will be broken, and the man in the woods will kill the child.”

“Doctor, a minute ago you were talking about calling in a bomb threat to ID the woman involved.”

“Yes, but only to confirm that it’s really happening again. And they use cell phones, so that wouldn’t break their schedule.”

“What exactly do you expect us to do with the information you’ve given me? Nothing?”

“I’m not sure. But you can’t just ride into the middle of this thing like the Seventh Cavalry. You’ll get people killed.”

“That’s not how we operate, Doctor. We might follow them from the ransom pickup at the bank, using a helicopter. We could put a GPS tracking device on the doctor’s car while it’s parked at the bank. The leader and the woman are eventually going to meet somewhere with the money. Maybe even at the same Mc-Donald’s restaurant where your wife got your son back.”

A disturbing current of anxiety was flowing through McDill. “Agent Chalmers, my child lived through his kidnapping precisely because I did not attempt to involve the police. I’ve come forward now to try to prevent another family from going through the same experience we did. But the fact is, they’re probably going through it already. And if your people attempt to intervene, you could cause the death of a child who otherwise would probably live. And please don’t start talking to me about ‘acceptable risk.’ Because I’m old enough to remember Vietnam.”

Chalmers blew air from his cheeks in frustration. “You’re saying we should let these kidnappers get away in order to be absolutely sure the hostage makes it. But if they get away with it again, they’ll simply keep doing it. If you’re right about any of this, I mean. And sooner or later, they’ll make a mistake. Or some parent will crack under the pressure, and their child will be murdered. It’s got to stop here, Doctor.”